


Needles In The Hay

by claralikesfood



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Egyptian Literature & Mythology, Archaeology, Egyptology, F/M, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-07 03:58:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1884462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claralikesfood/pseuds/claralikesfood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello guys ^^</p>
<p>Some time ago, I saw a post with some original ideas for AU's and this one was caught on my head for a long time before I got to work. Beware that this will be a collection of various stories.<br/>I hope you like it!</p>
<p>As always, you can find me on my blog <a href="http://what-is-it-jeager.tumblr.com/">what-is-it-jeager</a></p>
<p>This story is a work of fiction. The characters are based on real people, but the context is merely a product of my imagination. On the End Notes, there is a brief summary of the people each character represents and some other important aspects. </p>
<p>I don't own Attack on Titan.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Needles In The Hay

**Author's Note:**

> Hello guys ^^
> 
> Some time ago, I saw a post with some original ideas for AU's and this one was caught on my head for a long time before I got to work. Beware that this will be a collection of various stories.  
> I hope you like it!
> 
> As always, you can find me on my blog [what-is-it-jeager](http://what-is-it-jeager.tumblr.com/)
> 
> This story is a work of fiction. The characters are based on real people, but the context is merely a product of my imagination. On the End Notes, there is a brief summary of the people each character represents and some other important aspects. 
> 
> I don't own Attack on Titan.

1904

 

I wiped my face again but the sweat kept soaking my clothes and hat.

“Do you think this could lead us to him?”

Mikasa stopped digging and looked at me. Her face was covered in dirt, sweat and sand, much like mine, and she looked tired.

“Not really. We’ve been digging around here for years and we only found Queens and their sons.”

I shrugged. It was my fault we didn’t have any help form Egyptologists. No one could predict they would ban me from their “club” just because I accidentally broke a sarcophagus.

Armin stopped too. “If Eren’s theory is correct, then he was reborn not as a Prince, but as a bastard.” He smiled. “I also believe this is the best place to search for him.”

“Thanks, Armin.” I held the shovel and hit the ground with it, repeatedly.

A loud cracking noise made Mikasa yell.  “All of you, stop! I think we hit the entrance.”

Armin nodded and ran back to our tents and came back minutes later, various brushes on his hand, and a bottle on the other.

“Here.” He handed us the tools. “Be careful, we don’t know how damaged the tomb is.”

I scoffed. “I’m always careful.”

I saw Mikasa roll her eyes and whisper “Except that one time.”

 

We brushed for hours until something resembling an entrance emerged. Hieroglyphs covered it and Mikasa got to work, copying them and disappearing to her tent. Apparently, she couldn’t translate it next to _loud people_.

Me and Armin were left alone, and it was our task to open the tomb. This part always made me eerie. Stories of curses and traps were always associated with temples and tombs, and some of the archaeologists before us had actually died. We always waited for Mikasa to enter the place, and she would search the writings for death warnings and threats.

We also had special measures. We prayed for the ancestors on the place before stepping inside and never violated the local. We weren’t there for the treasure, only for the information and knowledge. They seemed to understand and accept us.

 

As the sun was approaching the horizon line, Mikasa came back, a radiant smile playing on her face.

“You’ll never guess who this is!”

Armin looked up to her. “Historically speaking or, uh, you know?”

She grinned. “Historically, dumbass.”

I leaned in. “Is it an important Queen?”

She sat next to me, and searched her notes. “Yes.”

“THIS IS NEFERTARI??” Armin screamed, pulling out a crumbled paper from the mountain of sketches lying at our feet.

My mouth fell agape and I was reduced to silent.

Mikasa threw me a notebook and I examined it.

“Nefertari was the wife of Ramses II. Apparently, he was one of the most powerful pharaohs of the New Kingdom and he was on the [tomb](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB320) of the high priest [Pinudjem II](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinudjem_II), the one we were denied access because someone decided to piss off the Egyptologist in charge of digging the place.” She explained, flicking me on the head.

I pointed a finger at her. “You know I don’t like that Kirstein asshole!”

She raised her voice. “But you didn’t have to break the sarcophagus.”

Amin stood up. “Guys, can we please don’t argue here. You know what can happen if we anger them.”

We nodded and I sighed. “Alright, there’s not much we can do today, so let’s call it a day.”

 

It was cold inside, and we shivered against the fabric of our shirts. Mikasa pulled out two torches and lit them, giving me one of them.

A flight of stairs was in front of us, leading the path to the resting place of one of the Great Royal Wives of Ramesses The Great. If somebody ever told me if I would be the one opening her chamber, I would have laughed at their faces, but here I was, the first person in centuries stepping inside this sacred place.

We stepped into the interior of the antechamber. Mikasa kept talking, explaining us that the paintings around us were based on the Book of the Dead and that the ceiling represented the heavens. Armin often interrupted her, asking for translation of certain writings, or for her to slow down a bit, taking notes of everything around us.

I was mostly stunned to silence. For them, History was their passion and job, but for me, it was my passion, my job, my fate and so much more.

My eyes scanned the walls around me, but there was no sign of him.

The east wall of the chamber presented us with a large opening flanked by Osiris, Father of Horus and Lord of the Underworld and the Dead, and Anubis, Protector of the Dead, Embalmer, Guardian of the Scales and Guider of the Souls. I silently said my prayers and asked for their permission to enter the resting place of such an important figure.  

 

We crossed the entrance guarded by the gods and arrived to a side chamber, rich in paintings and meaning.

“Look at the paintings.” Mikasa illuminated the wall. “She is being welcomed by the gods.”

Nefertari stood there, proud and beautiful, in the middle of the section, waiting to be presented to the gods, who, next to that wall, welcomed her into the heavens.

Armin stopped scribbling on his notes. “Eren, this is a major discovery, you know it, right?”

I turned to them. “I know. But I’m not here for the glory or the money. I came with a mission.”

I rushed to the stairway that lead us down, further in the interior of the tomb. Mikasa and Armin were archaeologists though, and they kept admiring the inside of the place, taking notes of every painting and translating entire passages from the Book of the Dead. I knew this was an important finding for History, but I couldn’t stop the voce inside my head that told me this place would give me a clue.

Mikasa stopped in front of me, and tossed me her torch.

“Eren, there’s a warning above you.”

 

_“As for all impure men who shall enter my tomb, there will be judgment and an end shall be made for him. I shall seize his neck like a bird, and cast the fear of myself into him"_

 

Armin shivered, not from the cold. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

“We’re not robbers,” I started. “and we’re aren’t impure, as far as I know.”

“Depends on the Queen’s definition of impurity.” Mikasa muttered.

Nevertheless, we began descending and at the end of the stairs, a sight that I would never forget opened before us.

The burial chamber was a quadrangular room, with a ceiling entirely covered in stars and constellations, white dots covering a deep blue extension, a peaceful sky for a beautiful queen to sleep in. this astronomical scene was supported by pillars, covered in decoration and as beautiful as Nefertari.

A red sarcophagus lay in the middle of this room, and Armin approached it.

“Is this granite, Eren?” He reached out.

“Don’t touch it!” I yelled. An amateur mistake. My voice resounded through the walls and I winced every time the sound came back to my ears. I shook my head and crossed the distance between me and my friend. “Yes, this seems like red granite to me.” I inspected the side before looking at the Queen’s face.

Mikasa called out for Armin and began questioning him on the passages written on the walls.

I tuned them out of my head and focused myself on Nefertari resting place.

“Mikasa, Armin, come here for a moment.”

“What is it, Eren?”

 

 “We found Petra.”

 

Mikasa raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, we found Petra?”

 “I mean,” I grabbed her shoulders and turned her to the deceased woman in question. “-look at her. She’s the spitting image of that Petra.”

Armin’s face opened in a smile and his eyes reflect his enthusiasm. “We’re closer, Eren!”

I smiled.

 

The rest of the walls were focused on the Queen’s life and death. Her marriage had been marked by a prosperity era and it was shown on the paintings. Each wall had golden lines and the pictures were the most preserved we had ever seen on a tomb. The detail of the images was astonishing, and Nefertari, or Petra, had been a good Queen, loved by her people and her husband.

Ramesses had loved his queen.

On one of the walls, there was a representation of her marriage, and when I looked, my breath was taken away.

There, on the center of it, a powerful man stood, hands laced with his wife. His face was, as it is normal for Egyptian art, on a side view, as his body stood on a profile view.  Even if his face was turned away from me, I could recognize his jaw in every era of History, and his eyes pierced through me through the centuries.

Next to me, Armin’s breath hitched. 

 

I looked around the room and it was clear to me now. Various statues of the couple were present and all of them made my heart ache and my breathing halt. Square jaws and feline eyes observed me from every corner of the room and my head was pounding, threatening me to explode.

And then, one of them made me break.

“No, this can’t be-” 

A young male, Nefertari and Ramesses’ first born son, stood in the middle of them. It was a face I would never forget.

 

It was my own face.

 

“Eren, you might want to look at this.” Mikasa called me from the other side of the room. She was scribbling furiously on a paper, translating lines of hieroglyphs. Ramesses’ love for his queen was obvious, and he had made sure that she would descend knowing that she had been loved.

 

_"My love is unique._

_No one can rival her, for she is the most beautiful woman alive._

_Just by passing, she has stolen away my heart."_

**Author's Note:**

> Note: (on 03/07/2014)  
> Many people have asked me if this is EreRi. This work is the first from a collection and I still consider it as being ereri. That said, this story might be considered Rivetra, but what i had in mind for you to notice is the fact that Eren is looking after Levi, only to find he isn't there anymore.  
> Nevertheless, the whole collection will be EreRi, and this story plays an important part. 
> 
> Levi  
> Levi’s character is described here as Ramesses II, also known as Ramesses the Great, the third pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt. On the early part of his reign, he was focused on building cities, temples and monuments. Ramesses led several military expeditions and the army he led is estimated to have totaled about 100 000 men. He made Egypt rich from all the supplies and riches he had collected from other empires, outlived many of his wives and children and left great memorials all over Egypt, especially to his beloved first queen Nefertari.  
> He was originally buried in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings but his body was later moved to a royal cache, where it was discovered in 1881, and is now on display in the Cairo Museum.  
> Contrary to Levi’s appearance, the pharaoh's mummy reveals that he had an aquiline nose and strong jaw, and was about 1.7 metres (5 ft 7 in). 
> 
> Petra  
> Nefertari was one of the Great Royal Wives of Ramesses the Great. She is one of the best known Egyptian queens, next to Cleopatra and Nefertiti. Nefertari married Ramesses II before he ascended the throne, and they had at least four sons and two daughters. Ramesses II named her 'The one for whom the sun shines', and their marriage wasn’t one for convenience.  
> In 1904, Nefertari’s resting place was rediscovered and excavated by Ernesto Schiaparelli. The tomb, QV66, is one of the largest in the Valley of the Queens. Ramesses also constructed a temple for her at Abu Simbel next to his colossal monument there.
> 
> Eren  
> Eren appears to us as two historical figures.  
> Firstly, he incarnates Ernesto Schiaparelli (1856– 1928), an Italian Egyptologist, who found Queen Nefertari's tomb in Deir el-Medina in the Valley of the Queens, in 1904. Between 1903 and 1920, Schiaparelli undertook twelve archaeological campaigns.  
> Later, he is described as Amun-her-khepeshef, the firstborn son of Ramesses II and Nefertari. He, as heir to the throne, held several titles. Some of them were unique such as "Commander of the Troops", "Effective Confidant" and "Eldest Son of the King of his Body." and other were shared with other prominent princes such as "Fan-bearer on the King's Right Hand" and "Royal Scribe". Amun-her-khepeshef died around Year 25 of his father's reign.
> 
> Jean  
> Jean’s character is based on Émile Brugsch (1842–1930) a German-born Egyptologist. He is known as the official who "evacuated" the mummies from the Deir el-Bahri Cache in 1881, and for clearing the tomb of the high priest Pinudjem II, located next to Deir el-Bahri, saving this resting place from a being used a store, where a local family sold antiquities. 
> 
> Curses  
> The warning featured here is merely fiction. Curses relating to tombs are extremely rare and they most frequently occur in private tombs of the Old Kingdom era. The tomb of Khentika Ikhekhi (9–10th dynasty) contains an inscription: "As for all men who shall enter this my tomb... impure... there will be judgment... an end shall be made for him... I shall seize his neck like a bird... I shall cast the fear of myself into him", and was the inspiration for the warning on the entrance for Nefertari’s burial changer (meaning, there isn’t no warning, that I know of.) Curses after the Old Kingdom era are less common though more severe. 
> 
> Ramesses' affection for his wife, as written on her tomb's walls, shows that Egyptian marriages were not simply convenience ones or marriages designed to accumulate greater power and alliances, but were actually based on some kind of emotional attachment. Poetry written by Ramesses about his dead wife is featured on some of the walls of her burial chamber.
> 
> Lastly, I am not a History student, or an Ancient Egypt specialist. Actually, all that I know of this period of History is what I searched from various sites. So, there may be historical errors, although I tried to be as correct as possible. All the information on the characters, the tombs and such can be found on Wikipedia. 
> 
> I hope you liked this story and stay tuned ^^


End file.
